sugarlina

I know, we were all gonna go on a "diet" after that major foodie vacation, plus I think I may need some time getting back into the groove of things, so I thought I would line up some posts...

Before heading back, BFF and I had dinner and afterwards were in the mood for something sweet.

Since she had never heard of Sugarlina Bakeshop, I bought her a nutella cupcake to try.

BFF unfortunately is super picky about cupcakes (or baked things in general), so she was disappointed with their shortening based frosting...but enjoyed the cake which was moist.

5 years ago, I first tried them and enjoyed them.

Their prices are the same, though over the years our sales taxes went up.

In Japan these days, it's all about being "insta-bae" (in-stah-bah-ay) or "photogenic for Instagram"...so where I would have probably chosen a favorite flavor like chocolate, which would be brownish...I instead chose the blingy blue vanilla one...he he.

I loved the buttercream-ish frosting topped with all that crunchy blue sugar and the cake was super moist.

And since we had purchased something, they gave me a free macaron...so we kinda split this cotton candy flavored one.

I think they put the cotton candy flavor into the shell and the filling is a dense whipped cream...talk about sugar rush!

5 years ago, they only sold cupcakes so it was nice to see that they had expanded their menu a little.

And if I am not mistaken over the years, they freshened up the interior of the shop too.

I'm glad I got to reconnect with this place...I'll be back (for special occasions).

foodie saturday

I only have a couple more days left in Hawaii, so I am trying to squeeze some foodie adventures in...

Saturday, BFF and I went to Chocolate & Vanilla Bakery, so that I could try their macaron.

I got their mint chocolate...$2.04 (tax included). I enjoyed this. The mint wasn't overpowering.

Though I wished that the outer "shell" was mint and the filling was dark chocolate...

We then bought a Champion malasadas....$.85 (plus tax) each.

Still as good as ever.

(I couldn't believe a guy actually walked in, took a look at the glass case and menu, then walked out without even buying a malasada!)

And enjoyed it with a cold brew coffee from Starbucks...$3.61 (tax included).

We then walked around Ala Moana a bit then headed over to J.J.Dolans for pizza.

It had been about 4 years since my last visit. Their pizza is still delicious.

Bellies full, lots of talking, and lots of laughs...it was a great day.

Thanks BFF!

pierre marcolini

Also in the Ewa Wing of Ala Moana are upscale shops and some cafés/eateries.

I went to check out Pierre Marcolini on the third floor.

Apparently, this shop is the only one in the U.S.

Since it has been quite warm and humid, instead of chocolates I decided to try their macarons...$3.80 a piece! (plus tax)

Palet Or Fondant (caramel ganache with dark chocolate)...super rich caramel!

Pistache (white chocolate ganache with pistachio)...nice!

These were very pricey! but very delicious.

They had other items on their take-out menu like their cacao bowl and soft serve, which I wouldn't mind trying.

I'll be back.

Pierre Marcolini
Ewa Wing, 3rd floor
Ala Moana Shopping Center
Phone: 808.951.0456
Hours: Mondays to Saturdays 9:30-21:00, Sundays 10:00-19:00
Closed when the shopping center is

patisserie y style

It had been awhile since I had been back to Patisserie Y Style.

This time around I tried a few of their macarons.

I tried the matcha (green tea), sésame (black sesame) and châitagne(japanese chestnut).

The matcha which was a fluorescent green threw me off a bit as usually this color is used with pistache (pistachio) macaron.

But I liked the texture of this.

The fillings for these macarons are flavored buttercreams.

My least favorite was the châitagne(japanese chestnut), there was no "chew" to the macaron, it kind of just crumbled when I bit into it.

Previously, they had no cafe space, but on this visit, I noticed they have a few tables out in front of their shop now and are also selling kakigori (shaved ice).

With this krazy humidity and heat, I may have to go back soon.

re-connect

Came across these macarons at Lawson the other day. They are made by a Japanese confectioner, Fujiya.

The green one is filled with framboise (raspberry) cream and the pink one with pistachio cream.

I enjoyed the cream fillings tasted like the real deal.

Last month, Yoshimi gave me this yuzu macaron by Malebranche. It was filled with dark chocolate ganache.

So good! Thank you!

I'm glad I re-connected with macarons, it had been awhile since I had one, these reminded me how much I love them.

la tour cafe (pearl city)

Last year I tried La Tour Cafe on Nimitz.

Then the other day, BFF and I had stumbled across their new location, right in our neighborhood!

We checked them out for dinner one night.

BFF had their french dip. She loved this. Ba-Le owns this place and makes the bread so you know sandwiches are delicious.

I had their goat cheese and beet salad.

Deep fried balls of goat cheese, with beet cubes, frisee lettuce mix, grated carrots, some sliced almonds, a balsamic vinaigrette and two crunchy slices of walnut cranberry bread.

Loved the flavors of this salad (tangy, sweet and sour) but would have wanted the lettuce to be more bite sized.

We both had mint water to drink.

And for dessert we each had macarons...coconut and salted caramel.

There are other items on the menu that we want to try, we'll be back!

La Tour Cafe
Gateway Shopping Center
1140 Kuala St #108
Pearl City, Hawaii
Phone: 808.369.7317

Open:
Sunday-Thursday: 10:00-21:00
Friday-Saturday: 10:00-22:00

la tour cafe

After dinner, we went to have something sweet at La Tour Cafe, which is kinda right across the street from Pier 38.

My brother had their Chocolate Ooze Cake.

My Aunties and I had macarons. Mango and Guava for the two aunties and salted caramel for me.

Their macarons are really delicious.

Something that intrigued me was their mint water...it is kind of like a green smoothie only really refreshing.

I asked the guy behind the counter how they make it and I hope to re-create it soon.

We'll be back. (Thank you Aunties!)

La Tour Cafe
888 North Nimitz Highway
Honolulu, Hawaii
Phone: 808.697.5000
Hours: Sunday-Thursday 10:00-21:00, Friday-Saturday 10:00-22:00

foodie tuesday

Got together with Tamakikat for lunch on Christmas Day.

The last time we got together in Kyoto, so this time, she was nice enough to come to Osaka.

Lunch was at Cante Cante, a relative of Cante Grande. I chose the eggplant curry.

One thing whenever you order curry in Japan, most times there isn't much "stuff", just lots of "sauce".

Despite this, their curry was delicious, nice kick to it.

After some shopping, we then had coffee/tea at Cacao Sampaka, I tried their macarons, the outside was chocolate which was chewy like a brownie, and the filling was supposed to be green tea, but it didn't really have much green tea flavor.

The weather was overcast, the wind was icy, but it was great getting together with Tamakikat and catching up with her.

on a walk

Yesterday was a sunny day. The temps were forecasted to reach double digits, which meant 10C (50F) for us, perfect for a walk.

Satoshi and I went to check out a relatively new cafe in the neighborhood called Cafe de Mercerie.

I looked up mercerie and it means haberdasher in French. Not knowing what haberdasher was I looked that up too. It means someone who sells knick-knacks for sewing like buttons, ribbons.

The interior was nice and I liked their pendant lighting. I also liked how they had vintage sewing machine pedals as part of their decor (the seating facing the street).

Satoshi ordered their morning set: a hard boiled egg, toast and salad with coffee...450 yen.

I ordered their cappuccino...500 yen.

A great place (except that they allow smoking), I want to go back and try their lunch menu.

After our little break, we continued our walk and came upon a tiny wagashi (Japanese sweets) shop called Fukusuke-do.

We purchased their wafers, each one is stamped with a picture of Ikeda-jo (Ikeda castle)...so crisp and delicious! 7 wafers for 500 yen.

Upon looking them up on the internet, I found out that this tiny shop has been in business since 1841! wow!

And just before reaching the end of our walk to Kawanishi, we came upon this vending machine...selling macaron.

The cake shop, which the vending machine is in front of, sells their macaron from it along with bottled drinks.

For 400 yen, you get two macaron, the flavors are chosen at random...after putting your money in, out pops a glass jar.

Dunno if the plopping of the jar in the machine or trying to pry them out crushed them, but they got a little beaten up.

The two flavors that came out were strawberry and sesame. The strawberry one had a whipped strawberry cream and the sesame had a black sesame buttercream. I liked the sesame one while Satoshi preferred the strawberry one.

Total sweet foodie day and all while on a walk.

Cafe de Mercerie
1-11-1 Asahigaoka
Ikeda, Osaka
Phone: 072.761.1023
Closed Saturdays, hours: 9:00-20:00

Fukusuke-do
3-2 Tateishi-cho
Ikeda, Osaka
Phone: 072.751.4251
Open everyday 11:00-15:00

Sweets Club BeBee
2-6-2 Oobe
Kawanishi, Hyogo
Phone: 072.744.2554
Closed Mondays, hours: 10:00-19:00

paris

The last time we were in Paris was on our honeymoon and it was for less than a day!

This time around, I was excited to see more of the city and more of the food of the city.

So, after a light hotel breakfast on our last full day in Paris, we started at Poilâne.

Even though this place mainly makes bread, I had wanted to try their tarte aux pommes (apple tart). This was very flaky and had just the right amount of apples.

The lady who was passing out samples of the punitions happily allowed us to take some photos inside the shop.

We also got some punitions (300 grams) but I'll talk about them a little later in this post.

Kinda around the corner from Poilâne is Le Grande Epicerie, which translates to me as gourmet supermarket heaven.

Pretty much every food item you can think of is sold here.

We picked up some items for lunch as well as some items I had been wanting to try.

I was really impressed with the cashier, she put everything carefully into our shopping bags, trying not to smash anything. This was unlike the other cashiers at places we picked up our dinner from which were similar to convenience store/market types, some would just throw everything in the bag!

Since what I bought ended up to be quite heavy, we zipped back on the metro to our hotel, dropped things off then zipped back out to Montparnasse.

There is a huge tower called Tour Montparnasse, the elevator takes you 196 meters (643 feet) up in 38 seconds.

Great view of the city! especially since the weather was so nice.

From Montparnasse, we then headed to Pont d'Alma, where I'd heard it was a nice place to take photos of the Eiffel Tower from.

It was a great spot!

We then walked toward the Parc du Champ de Mars and happened to turn up rue de Monttessuy and wow!

Another awesome view of the Eiffel Tower.

At Parc du Champs de Mars, we found a spot on the grass to picnic on, "no alcohol" say the signs though I spotted some "hiding" their stash.

We did have some wine with us but saved it for later that day and drank sodas with lunch instead.

Lunch was bread, mine was a mini-ficelle topped with poppy seeds...yum!

And our main dishes were a grilled vegetable salad and a marinated seafood salad, which we shared.

I really liked these items and Satoshi liked them even more because he kept talking about it for the rest of the day.

One thing you have to keep an eye out for while picnicking are the crows and the pick-pocketers. All were out in full force and we ate leisurely but also while clutching our bags and lids for our food.

For dessert, a little of the punitions we had purchased earlier.

I first learned about them awhile ago here, these cookies are buttery, a little sweet, yet very sturdy, we packed some for our picnic and not one crumbled.

(I also packed the rest in my suitcase to bring back to Japan and again, not one crumbled, and my suitcase was pretty stuffed!)

So after lunch, we walked under the Eiffel Tower towards Trocadero, another great view of the tower and then we zipped on the metro to the Arc de Triomphe.

We found out that you can climb to the top of the Arc, so we did...284 steps later we were at the top...eep!

It's a spiral staircase, so go slow, or you may get dizzy. And there aren't many places for you to stop and catch your breath on the way up. (no one said you needed to be in shape for sight-seeing?!)

But, the view was spectacular, especially since the weather was nice.

After all that stair climbing, we checked out Publicis Drugstore, a place for sweets as well as other items.

Then at this point, we were feeling a little hungry, so we stopped in at the McDonald's on Champs-Élysées.

I had heard they served Ladurée macarons in the McCafes and Satoshi was in the mood for a burger.

As soon as we walked in, Satoshi excitedly says..."Kat, they serve beer here!"

So, I ordered him a burger and beer and I ordered myself some macarons (caramel, citron & pistache (pistachio)) and unfortunately a very sickly sweet iced tea.

I was impressed that they had sidewalk seating for customers.

The macarons were delicious, I liked them all--caramel had a caramel center, citron had a lemony cream & pistache had a pistache cream. All were very well flavored.

After a nice snack and time to rest our feet, we then headed to Blanche, to check out A l'Etoile d'Or, a not to be missed candy shop, but sadly they were closed.

I had missed an important piece of info when I looked up this place...to call on a Monday, because sometimes they are closed.

A little bummed, we then went on to Montmartre to see the Sacré-Coeur Basilica.

As we walked up the steep cobblestone path to the basilica, I found a little shop, La Cure Gourmande, selling nougat, calisson and other treats.

At this point, our feet weren't happy, but the basilica was beautiful. We rested twice in the pews.

We had wanted to go up to the dome area, but saw that it was 300-something steps up, looked at each other and said, "forget it".

So we headed back to the hotel, picked up some items for dinner and then readied our bags for our early departure the next day.

Even though most of our time in France was spent with a tour group and our trip was short, I think we got to see and do quite a lot.

The weather had been forecast to be rainy for most of our trip, but we were lucky to see more sunny days.

And even if the temperature was almost 20 degrees less than Osaka's (sometimes it was colder than that, brr!), I was just happy to be away from the awful humidity.

I shot a couple videos on our last day in Paris, here and here.

I hope you had as much fun as we did....Thanks for bearing with my rambles and "merci" Satoshi for taking me to Paris!

Poilâne
8 rue du Cherche-Midi
75006 Paris, France
Phone: 01.45.48.42.59

La Grande Epicerie de Paris
38 rue de Sèvres
75007 Paris, France
Phone: 01.44.39.81.00

Tour Montparnasse
33 avenue du Maine
75755 Paris, France
Phone: 01.45.38.52.56

Publicis Drugstore
133 avenue des Champs-Élysées
75008 Paris, France
Phone: 01.44.43.76.31

A l'Etoile d'Or (2022: out of business)
30 rue Fontaine
75009 Paris, France
Phone: 01.48.74.59.55

La Cure Gourmande
8 rue Steinkerque
75018 Paris, France
Phone: 01.42.23.42.02

new

Over the past couple of weeks a lot of new shops and eateries have opened up in the Umeda area.

In Daimaru, which renovated all their floors, there is a Tokyu Hands. Tokyu Hands is an odds & ends shop, you can find almost anything and everything there.

They even opened a cafe which we want to try. Their store is on 3 separate floors, it is really big.

Also in Daimaru is a huge Pokemon Center as well as a cooking school.

Then NU Chayamachi opened an annex called, NU Chayamachi Plus.

They have all these statues of colorfully painted gnu lining the street in front. (I thought it quite weird that they named their building after the animal (gnu)...)

I liked how they are using real plants to create their sign, hope they can keep this up with summer approaching.

I stopped into the Starbucks in this complex. It was relatively empty.

I tried their new mini macarons...it came with one green tea and one black sesame. The green tea one had a white chocolate green tea cream, but needed more green tea flavor. The black sesame had a dark chocolate filling, this was good but needed more filling.

The JR Osaka station has been renovated too.

There is a huge domed roof and very very long escalators, doesn't it look like you are going up to heaven?!

Actually by going up these escalators, you can go straight into Daimaru. They even have an open cafe on this level.

Two department stores, Lucua & Isetan opened too.

These places were packed, mostly people riding the escalators to check it all out. (like me!)

I was happy that they have a place to sit on the 11th floor and a roof garden on the 14th. (If there is one thing you'll notice right away in Japan is that places to sit are really rare.)

Satoshi and I tried a tapas restaurant called Rosa Roja for dinner. This restaurant is actually run by the Osaka Granvia Hotel. The food is good. I particularly enjoyed the gyu-tan (beef tongue), it was tender and delicious with the thinly sliced veggies.

The Spanish wine, Volteo Tempranillo we tried was good too.

There are many food places from Tokyo which I'm sure we'll be able to check out in the coming months, but for now, it is best to let the crowds die down.

Rosa Roja
Lucua 10F
Umeda, Osaka
Phone: 06.6151.1384

m-m-making macaron

I've always wanted to try making macaron, but felt it was kind of tedious to gather all the ingredients.

So, when I saw this at MUJI for 998 yen (about US$9.98), I had to get it.

Previously, I've tried baking their mini muffins which I've written about here.

Anyway, I think I had bought the macaron mix sometime last year thinking I had enough time before the expiry date, but in the end, the expiry date came and went.

So yesterday, I finally tried part of the box, all you need to add is one egg white.

I say part because this box makes 10 chocolate and 10 caramel macaron.

My problem is that my oven is so small that I would only be able to bake 20 at once, not the 40 like the instructions say.

Luckily, everything is portioned out for each flavor, so you really don't have to do both at once.

I made circles on the back of a parchment paper so that I would know where to place my batter.

This was good, except that when I put my batter down, my circles came out uneven and some ran together.

Another problem I ran into was figuring out how long to bake these.

I baked it for the 13 minutes it suggests, but ended up baking it even longer, maybe 10 more minutes??

Some stuck to the parchment, which I think meant that it didn't bake evenly.

I think if all my circles were even and the amount of batter was even, then I wouldn't have had to bake them longer.

Anyway, they only give enough melting chocolate for 10 macaron, though I added some dark chocolate thinking the amount they gave wasn't going to be enough, and in the end ended up with a tablespoon of melted chocolate.

These macaron were crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle.

Adding the dark chocolate was good because the caramel outsides were quite sweet and the chocolate mixture kinda off-set this.

I guess I'll get creative with the filling when I bake the chocolate macaron...though I'll do this another day.

starbucks

It has been some time since I did a Starbucks post...did you know that someone actually brought their iguana to Starbucks (on a leash)?...thank goodness they were sitting outside that thing was HUGE!

I tried their sweet potato macaron, which had a cream center.

It was okay but didn't have much sweet potato flavor.

Their keema curry rolls are good. There are 4 rolls and each one is filled with spicy curry.

I also like their nut danish.

Actually I think I like anything with a lot of nuts on it.

At the convenience store, they have a hazelnut flavored coffee drink, it was okay but I wouldn't get this again.

What have you been up to?